Before coming to MoMA, Mr. Bajac served as a photography curator at the Musée d’Orsay in Paris, then as chief curator of photography at the Centre Georges Pompidou.

“It’s a different adventure,” Mr. Bajac said in an interview on Wednesday. “I spent six wonderful years at MoMA, and I’ve spent 25 years working in big institutions. I probably needed something else at this point in life — something lighter, maybe a little more nimble.”

At the Jeu de Paume, he continued: “You don’t have to be in charge of a collection and you can focus on exhibitions and a film program. You can be more reactive.”

The Jeu de Paume, established in 2004 at the Place de la Concorde in the French capital, is a small but influential museum of photography and video art, though it does not have its own collection. Since 2006 it has been led by the Spaniard Marta Gili, who inaugurated the Jeu de Paume as a leading photography institution with a particular focus on women. This year the Jeu de Paume has presented shows by contemporary artists such as Susan Meiselas and Bouchra Khalili, plus historical exhibitions of the Dadaist Raoul Hausmann and the documentary photographer Dorothea Lange. Ms. Gili stepped down earlier this year to return to Spain.

Mr. Bajac is the fourth major curator at MoMA to depart in recent months, even as the museum prepares to move into its expanded building on 53rd Street. This summer, Klaus Biesenbach, the museum’s chief curator at large and director of its sister site MoMA PS1, was named head of the Museum of Contemporary Art in Los Angeles. Kathy Halbreich, the museum’s associate director, also recently stepped down to lead the Robert Rauschenberg Foundation, while the painting curator Laura Hoptman left in July to lead the Drawing Center.

“I would have preferred to leave in a year, once everything is completed,” Mr. Bajac said. “It’s not the best possible timing. But it’s really a collective work, and the strength of MoMA is that collective.”

A version of this article appears in print on , on Page C3 of the New York edition with the headline: Quentin Bajac Leaving Curator Role at MoMA. Order Reprints | Today’s Paper | Subscribe